http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
It really wouldn’t surprise me. The end justifies the means. We are going to save the world to hell with the cost. Lets talk about it. Would an American president sacrifice his own people? And does the end justify the means?
This should maybe go in Comments on Staff Reports, because they dealt with that very question here.
The title to that site should be “Mother of all Conspiracy Theories”
FDR almost certainly knew that the Japanese would go to war with the U.S., but declared to several advisors that we could not, morally, strike the first blow if there was a chance to avoid the war.
Nearly everyone in the administration, the Army, and the Navy assumed the attack would fall on the Philipines.
No one in the U.S. actually knew that Pearl would be the initial target (which leaves them open to the charge of “dumbness” since we had practiced that attack, ourselves, in 1927, but does not indicate a conspiracy).
Most telling: We could have baited a trap and tried to take on the Japanese fleet had we known they were coming. The American people would have been just as outraged and just as prepared for war if the Japanese attack had been a U.S. victory.
Beyond that, this issue has been addressed on at least the previous occasions (although we will probably deal with it a few more times before the new movie has finished its run):
Did FDR know about the attack on Pearl Harbor beforehand?
It is mentioned, here:
wwII - pearl harbor attack results
Plausable Deniability (In response to the SDStaff report:
Did Roosevelt know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor yet say nothing?
tomndebb, I salute you! I did the same search but just wasn’t as quick as you were.
[sub]I stopped to actually print out some of the links from threads that predate my tenure here[/sub].
Yep, this has been debated before. I recall it from the time I posted to one of those threads.
Please forgive me…but there are many new members since the last post on this subject.
Back to the OP… Even the post from Cecil’s elves didn’t say anything but no. No cites no nothing. So this guy made it all up?
Excuse me for this slight aside.
But it bothers me that so many old timers on this board think that just because they talked about a subject it doesn’t deserve being discussed again. This board gets new members every day. If you are posted out on it…just stay out of it.
At no point have I suggested that this topic has been closed. It is obviously a popular topic. I believe I even noted that “we will probably deal with it a few more times before the new movie has finished its run.”
However, there is a lot of factual rebuttal to the claims alleged in the site you initially linked. That information (as well as information that supports the conspiracy theories–or attempts to) will be found in the older threads. It hardly hurts to have information readily available if a debate seeking Truth is in the offing.
What tomndebb said.
There was no implied criticism (at least with respect to my post) in noting that we’d discussed this before. If I myself had started a thread on a certain topic, I’d appreciate someone coming along and pointing me towards an old discussion–so I could become more well informed on the topic.
Of course, it’s possible that you might read all of the old threads and still have an argument (or new points of view) to make. If so, go for it! But it certainly isn’t harmful–and may even be helpful–to read up on what’s already been discussed.
Reeder,
Personally, I don’t think folks are criticizing this particular OP per se; however, I do think they’re mentioning that a search of the site may have garnered the information requested in the OP.
For the information aspect: see the Staff Report.
For the bullshit side: See Stoid(ella)'s postings on the subject.
Absent a moderator’s notice that the thread should be dropped, I figured I’d comment on your link.
The basic premise of the link appears to be that the FDR administration, or someone, allowed the Pearl Harbor disaster to happen, and that this is proven by:
This is obviously silly because if you read it in context, the report was not saying everyone knew the planes were coming on Dec. 7.
This proves very little, unless you can demonstrate that some of the denied intel was specific knowledge of the IJN’s advance towards Hawaii.
A variety of out-of-context quotes.
The fact that FDR and the USA were openly belligerent to Japan and Germany.
It’s certainly true that the U.S. was the avowed enemy of the Germans and the Japanese before 12/7/41, but that doesn’t prove anyone had specific knowledge of the impending attack. The fact that key members of government in the United States wanted to join the war is true, and it’s not exactly a secret - it’s common knowledge. But it doesn’t prove anyone knew about the sneak attack on Pearl any more than Poland’s hostility towards Germany proves they knew the Germans were coming on 9/1/39. Your link seems to assert, over and over again, that the proof of FDR’s knowing about Pearl Harbor lies in his hostility towards the Axis. I don’t see any logical connection there; how does disliking Hitler and Tojo make FDR a psychic?
It is established and well-documented fact that the IJN never once transmitted a radio message to the attacking forces that would have given away what they were doing. Your link claims some might exist prior to Dec. 7; well, let’s see them. The link-from-the-link to a variety of decoded JN25 messages shows nothing that would have dissuaded anyone from the preconceived notion that a Japanese attack would fall on the Phillipines. The fact that many Japanese messages (diplomatic ones) were decoded does not demonstrate that the attack on Hawaii was decoded, or even transmitted. The only reference to Pearl are spy reports on fleet composition there on Dec. 5 and Dec. 6, which, frankly, you’d expect anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s the fleet that will be steaming west in Japan does anything. I think people sometimes confuse this event with Midway, where US radio intelligence did, in fact, figure out what the Japanese were doing.
The author at your link seems to be confused between the idea that the U.S. knew Japan was aggressive and would attack soon (a fact) and the notion that the U.S. knew specifically about the Pearl Harbor attack (a wild-ass theory.)
Yeah, right. What evidence is there of this?
There are three problems with this whole bit:
A corollary to this is that the author uses a variety of logical leaps and out-of-context stuff to assert that the battleships were sacrificed because FDR knew they weren’t useful as opposed to the carriers. That’s bullshit on two levels; first, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD at the time thought battleships were a critical arm of a navy; secondly, despite the increased importance of carriers, battleships WERE important. The U.S. could have put those ships to great use.
Astonishing as the blunders at Pearl Harbor and the Phillippines might seem, they were by no means unique. Military history is abound with amazing screwups of staggering proportions; I invite you to read Dixon’s On the Psychology of Military Incompetence to see just how this sort of thing happens, but a short list of just WWII blunders would include:
Are these ALL conspiracies? They’re all screwups on par with Pearl Harbor.
The behaviour of Roosevelt and the U.S. simply does not logically fit a conspiracy. As many have already pointed out, if they knew the Japanese were coming, why not have the battleships steam out of port and have the planes at Hickam Field take off just before the attack? The author of the link also seems to assert that MacArthur deliberately allowed his forces to be wiped out without opposition in the Philippines, which doesn’t make any sense, either. There still would have been a lot fore and smoke and some casualties and the U.S. would still have had a cause to declare war. The sacrifice of the battleships was completely unnecessary, so why would Roosevelt just let them sink? It makes no sense at all.
The author’s basis for everything appears to be “I hate FDR and he is Satan.” That’s fine as a personal opinion but suggests a level of bias in his research not conducive to truth. On another page, he claims that:
The page the OP linked to is rather inaccurate and misleading in regards to the cryptological evidence. Unfortunately, my copy of Battle of Wits is not at hand, so I’m going to have to go by memory, but it presents a much better analysis of exactly what was known and at what time.
Yes, the US had broken Japanese diplomatic (Purple) and naval (JN25) codes, but that does not necessarily mean that the information was immediately available. From what I recall, the only information sent to the Japanese embassy was a message at the last minute saying to get out of the country ASAP. This was, I believe, decrypted and passed on shortly after the attack.
As for the JN25 traffic, at the time of the attack, the traffic being read was, IIRC, from October. It was not until March, 1942 that the US was reading current JN25 traffic. The author of the webpage seems to think that once a code is broken, it is a trivial matter to read all the messages immediately. This is simply untrue. It was a long and arduous process, and before the war started, the codebreaking agencies were woefully undermanned for the task. Saying that 738 people were engaged in the breaking of the codes is a meaningless number when presented without any sort of context as to how much work there was.
I expect the rest of the information presented is equally as intellectually dishonest. For example, the author blames the Japanese deaths in the raid on Roosevelt. That’s simply absurd, as if he had done what the author claims he could have, more Japanese would have died, unless he thinks somehow the Americans could have defended Pearl Harbor without firing a shot.
I posted the staff article that many have mentioned.
Someone responded with the following URL: http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2001/06-04-2001/vo17no12_facts.htm
It’s probably the most compelling argument for the conspiracy theory I’ve ever read. Not being overly familiar with the whole situation, I really can’t say how accurate this article is. I figured someone here might be able to comment, since it seems to contradict the Staff article.
Sorry, but I haven’t even gotten to the first paragraph of the text without giggling. The writer is described as “the author of The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline and Tornado in a Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism.” :rolleyes:
Do you have any Pearl Harbor conspiracy articles by people who are still sane?
Dude, this article is pathetic. The majority of it is dedicated to the proposition that FDR wanted to enter the war and kick Japanese (and German) ass if they fired the first shot. Big surprise.
But it claims that FDR actually wanted to start a war. How do we know this? Because “Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence . . . advocated eight actions predicted to lead Japan into attacking the United States. McCollum wrote: ‘If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.’” Oooh, a Lieutenant Commander wanted to start a war. That MUST mean the Commander in Chief knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time!
In 1940, FDR decided to put the fleet in Hawaii, where it might actually be a deterrent to Japanese agression, rather than in California. And somebody fired the guy who complained about it! Goodness, that must mean FDR knew Yamamoto was on his way.
Military bureaucracy prevented the commanders at Pearl Harbor from knowing what Japan was planning. Stupidity, incompetence, and the desire to keep Purple a secret are clearly impossible, so FDR must have planned it that way to cover up the attack on Pearl Harbor.
We knew Japanese spies were keeping track of the American Navy. This was clearly an indication of war. By extension, the United States has had an active operation underway to bomb the crap out of every single one of its enemies for the last century. How’d you like that surprise attack on your fleet in 1968, you Soviet bastards?
We knew Japan was preparing for war. That can only mean thay they were planning to launch a carrier-based air atack on Pearl Harbor.
Cite from a non-lunatic source, please. Also cite that this message was intercepted by American intelligence, decoded, translated, and transmitted to FDR prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Obviously hard to do, since even the whacked-out article the Hoopster cited admits there is no evidence whatsoever that anybody ever saw it. But FDR must have known about the attack on Pearl Harbor ahead of time, because “One thing, however, is certain: The message?s significance could not have been lost on the translator.”
The Japanese were known to have considered an attack against Pearl Harbor. BFD. They were known to have considered attacks against pretty much every target anywhere near the Pacific Ocean: “In Java, in early December, the Dutch Army decoded a dispatch from Tokyo to its Bangkok embassy, forecasting attacks on four sites including Hawaii.” Yet FDR must have known the other sites were red herrings. They’re after Pearl Harbor!
Unconfirmed, after-the-fact statement of a Dutch captain who says he saw, at the Office of Naval Intelligence, a map with the Japanese task force off Hawaii on Dec. 6. Despite the utter lack of any evidence confirmation that the Americans knew where the Japanese were on Dec. 6, FDR must have known about the attack on Pearl Harbor!
A freelance reporter (who nevertheless “had formerly held several posts in the Roosevelt administration”) was handed incredibly sensitive military intelligence intercepts by the Secretary of State were about to bomb Pearl Harbor. But this incredible breach of the FDR Pearl Harbor conspiracy was okay, because the SoS asked the reporter not to say anything about it. Nevertheless, but without any sort of cite whatsoever, we are told that the reporter “managed to get a hurried version onto UP?s foreign cable, but only one newspaper carried any part of it.” Uh-huh.
And here’s the clincher: the American commanders at Pearl Haror were incompetent. And they didn’t have immediate access to intelligence intercepts. By god, that spells c-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y.
Wanna know how I know this article is cow excrement? Because it claims that “Marshall had only to pick up his desk phone to reach Pearl Harbor on the transpacific line.” Demonstrable falsehoods do not make convincing evidence of massive conspiracies.
There was just an article in Salon about that.
Well, I got past the first paragraph, but almost choked on the lies that followed it. This was particularly egregious:
There were no unprovoked depth-charge attacks against Kriegsmarine U-boats. In fact, several U.S. merchant and naval ships were sunk by U-boats before the U.S. Navy was allowed to begin firing on hostile submarines. This lie dishonors the many seamen who died from hidden attacks for more than a year prior to the U.S. entry to the war.
At the time that the fleet was moved to Pearl, it was felt that the shallow harbor was its own protection against torpedo attack. When the British succeeded in modifying torpedoes to sink Italian vessels in a similar harbor (Taranto), it was suggested to Richardson’s replacement, Kimmel, that he rig torpedo nets. He replied that he did not believe the Japanese could duplicate the British feat and that the nets were a hassle to deal with.
This is another flat out lie. The radio traffic–as has been documented by U.S., Japanese, and British historians–was dummy traffic to make it appear that the fleet was in the Kuriles. The Japanese did overlook two air divisions and that was noted by U.S. intelligence, indicating that the fleet was moving, but the U.S. agencies assumed that the fleet would move south to attack the Philipines and Indo-China.
The website ends on an ellipsis, omitting the final sentences of the report:
[quote}…and employing all their equipment. The Peruvian Minister considered the rumors fantastic but he considered them of sufficient importance to convey all this.[/quote]
At which point, the message was forwarded to Admiral Kimmel with the comment (from Naval Intelligence, not the White House) “The Division of Naval Intelligence places no credence in these rumors.”
The rest of the page piles on more and more assertions (with fewer and fewer citations). I’m afraid that having started out in lies, I am not inclined to believe much of what is posted there.
FDR certainly knew that war with Japan was imminent. He (and any congressman who did not have his head buried) knew that the sanctions against Japan for the Japanese assaults in China, (preventing oil and steel from being shipped to Japan), would provoke a reaction. There is no good reason to believe that FDR was any better informed that the attack would occur at Pearl Harbor than his military strategists who expected it to be launched in Southeast Asia. According to the way the plot is outlined, there, literally thousands of U.S. military were in on the secret–and many blabbed to civilians–but they not only did not use the information to prepare for an attack, they kept their mouths shut when Congress investigated the attack at the end of the war, choosing to let people know about it only in diaries or personal memoirs that only surfaced 60 years after the event.
minty green, the attack order you quoted from the site was, indeed, point #2 of Yamamoto’s four-point sailing orders to send the Japanese fleet off toward Pearl. Of course, what has not been shown in the web site, (or, apparnetly, in the bad book which it cites), is that the order was transmitted by radio (rather than by cable which would have made more sense), and intercepted by the U.S. and correctly decoded and hidden away somewhere, (with all the intelligence personnel agreeing to never reveal it during the later investigations of the Pearl Harbor attack).
Of course, Stinnett could find that message. It has been re-printed in dozens of official and unofficial histories. Stinnett, however, seems to have claimed to have found it in a “new” place with no evidence of where that new place might have been.
Having already arrived at my own analysis of Stinnett’s publication, I enjoyed reading this section of the link provided by manduck:
The post citing the book by James Perloff reveals what kind credibility these “Chicken Little” have. If you read the review of his book on the machinations of the Council on Foreign Relations, he claims Ronald Reagan was too liberal and soft on communism. Game. Set. Match.